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Veroboard is not that common on this side of the pond. It can be purchased but not a lot of choices. Last time looked into it there was 2 or 3 distributors. 2 in USA and 1 in Canada. With that in mind was thinking of etching the boards.

You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Thanks for that, looks useful .. .. ..actually though I'm quite happy with what I've got .. .. I put some ZIF sockets on the 3 Mainboards and soldered a set of ICs into turned pin sockets .. .. safe as houses ! I responded to questions from other members and lacking the personal knowledge, relied on a quote from your tutorial document.

The purpose of these boards is to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the ability to program an IC to carry out a specific function .. ie flash LED's in a sequence or drive a stepper by sequenced pulses in the right order .. .. .. once achieved, the purpose of the boards is over.. isn't it ? They are a means to an end and once that end is achieved they have no means at all !

I can't see the point in making provision for long term repeat program changes which simply are not going to happen .. .. .. .

I wouldn't say the purpose of the boards is over. I am still using the same breadboard that I used to flash my first LED years ago. Your workmanship is beautiful, but do consider incorporating ICSP.* It is really only two additional pins. And not even that, if you are only slightly brave. MCLR can be isolated by a simple resistor. Some people add a diode. Data and Clk are a little more sensitive, but resistors work for them too, as do jumpers.

The purpose of these boards is to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the ability to program an IC to carry out a specific function .. ie flash LED's in a sequence or drive a stepper by sequenced pulses in the right order .. .. .. once achieved, the purpose of the boards is over.. isn't it ? They are a means to an end and once that end is achieved they have no means at all !

I can't see the point in making provision for long term repeat program changes which simply are not going to happen .. .. .. .

S

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No! You are not missing anything!! All are entitled to their "4 penneth" so to speak!

The purpose of these boards is to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the ability to program an IC to carry out a specific function .. ie flash LED's in a sequence or drive a stepper by sequenced pulses in the right order .. .. .. once achieved, the purpose of the boards is over.. isn't it ? They are a means to an end and once that end is achieved they have no means at all !

I can't see the point in making provision for long term repeat program changes which simply are not going to happen .. .. .. .

Click to expand...

For most of the boards that's true, they are a 'one off' hardware solution - but the processor boards are obviously programmed over and over again.

To further explain why I didn't include ICSP on the boards, there were a number of reasons for that:

1) I wanted the boards to be as simple and basic as possible, so they were easy for people to make.

2) At the time most hobbiest programmers were home made, and didn't really provide ICSP.

3) The official MicroChip programmers were really very expensive back then, so not an option for most people.

This has obviously changed now, with the cheap PICKit2/3 programmers 'killing' off the third party hobbiest programmers.

'Back in the day' my technique was to fit my target PIC's in turned pin sockets, and in turn plug that in to a conventional socket on the target board, or in a ZIF socket on my programmer. I'm a bit bemused why Musicmanager has soldered the PIC's in his turned pin sockets?, the idea is that if you break a pin off the turned pin soicket you unplug the PIC and fit it in a new socket

Incidentally, over a number of decades, and thousands of programming cycles, I've NEVER broken a pin off on of the turned pin sockets (or damaged a PIC in any way - burning a fingerprint in the top of one, doesn't count ).

Since it initially was your suggestion to use turned pin sockets to protect the pins of the chip from wear & tear, I think we agree on that bit .. .. ?

I have soldered opposite corners of chip to socket to prevent chip coming out of socket, for the same reason .. .. if the chip fails .. then both chip and socket are consigned to the bin .. .. .. I think that is also being careful .. ... I suspect you are probably going to say OVER careful, but when you're as hamfisted as I am there is no such thing !